


Kiyoshi Kogami Invested in Soundproofing

by recoilshipping



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 10:17:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19904110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recoilshipping/pseuds/recoilshipping
Summary: Written for the VRLink14 Prompt "What if Ryoken / Revolver never was able to save the children from the Lost Incident?"





	Kiyoshi Kogami Invested in Soundproofing

**Author's Note:**

> deaths under WARNING

The lab where humanity’s successors are in development is always eerily silent. You’d think torture would be louder than this. As six children duel for their lives anguished screams and lonely wails only fall on their own ears to remind them of what their pain sounds like, and their pain alone.

An eight year old Ryoken Kogami can’t hear those things.

The soft hums from computers that take up entire rooms are steady as Ryoken plays hide and seek in their aisles. The glowing lights flicker to cast and vanish his shadow, livening up an otherwise boring search game. 

“Whatever these computers are doing, it must be awfully important,” the boy reasons to himself as he wanders the lab. The way his father and the assistants were always typing away in front of rows of screen monitors, like they were glued to them. It reminds him how much he likes being outside better, in the flower field. 

But something must be going right for once because Aso and Kyoko seem less stressed about being away from the lab for so long when they take Ryoken for a stroll by the waterfront. Genome seems more relaxed too, and when Dr. Kiyoshi Kogami himself mentions that their work is set to finish sooner than expected Ryoken can hardly contain his excitement. 

Six faces fade from his mind as he recalls the promise his father made to him: a boat voyage once all the work was over. That night the Stardust Road glistens on the ocean, and gazing at it lulls Ryoken into a peaceful sleep.

It’s been six months since the Hanoi Project started.

**-WARNING-**

The start of the seventh month marks the first casualty. 

Everything seemed to be going normally, a box of water lowered to a child as the reward for a duel lost. The child opened the box using the attached straw, then put their VR equipment back on, ready to begin another duel. Tentative sips are taken as the match progresses, with neither child nor AI gaining a major advantage. And quicker than you can blink, the child crashes the box of water against their head, dousing themselves, and electric shocks pulse through the VR headset as their life point counter zeroes out.

The eighth month sees a child break their headset by repeatedly throwing it against the walls of their cell. Then they thrash their body against the walls in a very similar fashion. The researchers send another, sturdier headset model down on an otherwise empty tray, and it’s broken just like the previous one.After that they don’t bother with that test subject anymore, leaving that kid free to their own devices amongst the pieces of plastic, glass, and circuitry. It isn’t long until everything in that room lies broken. A duel disk. Trading cards. Clothing. And a lifeless body.

The ninth month a child succumbs to exhaustion. Having lost all hope they collapse to the ground and unable to continue, they lay motionless. 

The tenth month sets one child on an unprecedented losing streak. Amazing as it is how long that child could run on empty, even with such a fierce will starvation caught up to them.

The eleventh month another child starves to death as well, via lack of trying. Food containers litter the floor of the cell, unopened. Perhaps the situation would’ve been more concerning earlier on in the experiments. Food was supposed to be an incentive for the children to duel, after all. What to do then, when that tactic failed?

But with the Ignis having advanced so far already it matters very little to the scientists at this point.

The last child disappears. Surveillance footage, duel records, the pristine cell. Nothing seems out of place or indicative of foul play, but there’s no kid.

_“How do you just lose a child?”_

The question hangs on the minds of the researchers, but none of them dare voice it. Not when the deaths of the other five children loom as their answer. But the lack of a corpse is unsettling nonetheless. 

It’s been a year since the Hanoi Project started.

**Author's Note:**

> do not ask me which kid died how


End file.
